Laser Weapon Melts Test Drone

The Compact Laser Weapons System features four main parts that help it turn plain old energy into a deadly force: It has a battery, a chiller that keeps the system from getting too hot, a 2-kilowatt laser and a "beam director" that points the laser light at the intended target.

Engineers designed the system to be lighter and more compact than its big cousin, the High Energy Laser Mobile Demonstrator (HEL MD), by redesigning the beam director. The first prototype of the Compact Laser Weapons System is 40 percent lighter than the vehicle-mounted HEL MD system, said Neal, who noted that this lower weight makes the portable laser gun easier to move around than the HEL MD.and also allows the motors that control the compact system's beam director to function quickly.

Both the HEL MD and the smaller laser weapon can be operated by one person, but the main advantage of the Compact Laser Weapons System is that it can be used just about anywhere. While the bigger system features a more powerful, 10-kW laser, it's fixed to the top of a vehicle, so it can only go where the vehicle goes.

"Think of it like a welding torch being put on a target, but from many hundreds of meters away," Isaac Neal, a Boeing engineer, said in a video about the new weapons system that was posted on the defense contractor's website.

In a recent test, the laser, which is compact enough to carry around in a suitcase, was able to locate, aim and fire at a small drone flying above a testing facility in Point Mugu, California. The laser gun acts quickly (it took just 15 seconds for it to shoot the test drone out of the sky) and discreetly, according to Neal. Speedy reaction times can be important in battles when every second counts.